


Blue.

by Lauren_is_a_moron



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, Shadowy organisation, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 05:00:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6786271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauren_is_a_moron/pseuds/Lauren_is_a_moron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the year 2003, fifteen five year old’s disappeared across the country, baffling police with no leads. At eight years old Phil Lester was supposed to be one of them, but he was spared for reasons unknown. As he grows up, the faces and names of the missing kids haunt him, until he turns sixteen when a boy with blue hair appears on his doorstep out of nowhere. The boy seems remarkably familiar, and Phil comes to realize he has more in common with the stranger than he thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write a fic where dan has blue hair, but then there's this..and... ?? idk.

9th November, 2003.

He knew the parents were downstairs. Because Jennifer Lester’s house had been under surveillance for quite some time. The mother and father never checked up on little Phil Lester after 8pm. He was usually asleep, cuddling his most trusted teddy bear and a pretty battered copy of Flat Stanley. The operation was simple, and it couldn’t go wrong. The windows were easy to break and it was an easy job: just straight in, grab the child, and then back out into the getaway car. He had done it a million times and tonight was no exception.

Except this time he didn’t break the window. Not after last time. It was his what, third kidnapping? Well, he wouldn’t call it a kidnapping. When these kids were older they’d thank the organisation for this opportunity. But at five years old, you can imagine a little kid’s reaction when a man is smashing through your bedroom window and climbing through. It doesn’t matter how many times he shushed the screaming kid or once or twice swore at it; because this one kid would not shut up. It turned out hissing, “Shut the fuck up you little brat!” didn’t work, and he had to actually use human emotions he hadn’t used in a very long time. Such as hugging the kid to his chest and murmuring that everything was going to be alright.

So this time, the man spent at least fifteen minutes of precious time trying to prise the damn windows open. Which yes, it worked, but he was left with sore fingers and less patience than he had come with.

Cas was his name. No other details really needed. He was only there for one thing, and that was the kid, he thought as he climbed expertly through five year old Phil’s Lester’s window and landed poised on his toes like a cat. The kid’s room was what any other five year old bedroom would look like; the walls were a bright yellow and the ceiling a dark blue dotted with glow in the dark stars. The night light plugged in by the kid’s bed emitted an almost eerie light which illuminated Phil as he slept. The kid was smiling in his sleep and Cas might have thought that was cute, but that was if he had an actual heart and feelings.

The kid mumbled something in his sleep then and nuzzled his nose into the ratty fur of his teddy bear. Cas crept towards the kid, careful not to step on the hazards dotting the little kid’s carpet; a Tellytubby plushie and his favourite Fireman Sam action figure. “Jane,” Cas murmured into the Bluetooth clipped onto his ear. He couldn’t help staring at the kid as he started to mumble the same words he had said countless other kid’s bedrooms. Like Zoe and her bright pink wallpaper and fluffy unicorn, James and his Winnie The Pooh duvet bedspread. Phil was just another kid. Little Phil Lester was yet another contribution to the future.

“I’ve got him.” Cas murmured; and then came Jane’s reply, as stoic as usual. “Well grab him and make a run for it!” she replied. Cas couldn’t help rolling his eyes. “Yep, are Blake and Johnson still outside?”

Jane sighed through his Bluetooth. Just asking her a simple question seemingly drained her of energy. “They were the last time I checked, Cas.” She grumbled, “Which was five fucking minutes ago.”

“You’re a bundle of laughs, you know that right?” Cas reached forward to grab the sleeping boy and bundled him into his arms. Phil was still wrapped in his duvet, that stupid teddy still clutched in his arms. “Got him.” Cas swayed slightly trying to regain balance at the little boy’s weight was suddenly a surprise to him. “Man, he’s heavy!” Cas let out a short laugh as he stumbled back over to the window where he had managed to prise it open. The chilly November air brushed against his skin once he had one leg back through the window, and he felt the kid shiver underneath his duvet.

Cas was close. He was so damn close. But Phil seemed to try and roll over in his arms, and tiny hands grasped for his stupid ratty teddy. Cas held his breath and quickly looked over his shoulder back into the kid’s bedroom, where of course, the teddy lay on the bright blue carpet, forgotten. Its arms were stretched out rather comically, as if the teddy itself was trying to save the kid. Cas glanced down at the bundle in his arms and tried very hard not to breathe. If he could just- he tried once again to climb back through the window, but froze when the kid mumbled something, which sounded less and less like actual sleep-talk.

“Mum?” the kid’s eyes were suddenly blinking open and staring straight up at him with a mixture of confusion and wonder, and Cas knew he should have smiled reassuringly, or maybe just made a dash for it, but instead he just found himself staring back at the little kid. Phil seemed to be stuck in some kind of trance, his blue eyes wide in wonder at the man in all black wearing a pair of rather trendy sunglasses. Maybe the kid thought it looked cool, Cas thought for a second. Maybe he could pass off as some kind of...childhood superhero?

“Hello Phil.” He managed to catch a hold of himself, and the kid blinked again, and this time his little face scrunched up and he opened his mouth to start fucking screaming. Cas froze, stuck in a mental debate to make a run for it, or drop the kid and run. It was a rule that if a kid put up a fight, you would have to leave it for another day.

“Mum!” Phil started to yell. “Mummy, where are you?!” and with that, Cas was dropping the kid, not really dropping him, but sitting Phil back down on his carpet and diving towards the window. “Mission aborted.” He said quietly to Jane, as he climbed back through Phil’s window. Johnson and Blake were in the blacked out BMW just down the street and when he threw open the door, throwing himself in the backseat; it didn’t take long for the other men to realize he was empty handed.

“The kid?” Blake was already stamping on the gas the second Cas had screamed, “GO!” until his throat was raw. Cas lay in the back seat still panting and for a few seconds, completely blanked his colleague’s question.

“Castiel, the kid!” Johnson hissed impatiently. “Where is he?”

Cas pressed his face into the expensive leather of the seats. “Dumb brat started screaming,” he grumbled. And when Johnson and Blake made simultaneous noises of annoyance, he rolled his eyes. “Relax, okay? He’s not going anywhere. We’ll get him at some point,” he paused. “This time we’ll need a distraction for the parents.”

“You better be right.” Blake grumbled as he straightened out a map of London in front of him on the dashboard. On it were various red dots marking specific places on the map. “Where next?” Cas sat up and leaned forward, staring intently at the map. Blake shrugged. “56 Morale Drive.” Johnson said as he stared out of the window. “Kid’s name is Howell. That’s all we know. Five years old; parents are Lila and James Howell.”

Cas nodded. “This one better not be a fucking brat.”

-

Phil sat there for a few seconds, his little mind fuzzy with sleep. He partly wondered who exactly the man was, and why his mother wasn’t coming running upstairs like she normally did.

Phil sat cross legged on his bedroom carpet and stared back through the window where the strange man had dived through, like Spiderman or Superman. But Spiderman saved people, he didn’t creep in kids bedrooms and try and take them on his adventures. “Mum!” Phil started to cry then when he realized his teddy had gone. “Mummy!” he tried again and again until he heard the stairs creak as two pairs of footsteps came rushing up. The door flew open and his mother, Jennifer Lester, stood looking tired and run down in a pink fluffy dressing gown and slippers. “Phil?” she rushed forward, panic evident on her face. “Honey, what’s-“and then she froze. And so did his father, Cam, who stood beside her scratching the back of his head.

Phil cried harder as his parents seemed to freeze, completely petrified with fear, just like on the cartoons he watched on Saturday mornings. Jennifer and Cam weren’t staring at him though. He sat cross legged, still screaming jumbled rubbish which was a rather detailed description of his experience with the strange man. But what made him cry harder, tears streaming down his face, was the look on his parents faces as they stared past him, straight at the open window, his Fireman Sam curtains still blowing around in the brisk breeze.

~.~

12 years later – 9th May 2016.

“So auntie Carol’s number is on the fridge in case of any emergencies, me and your dad will call you every night to check you’re okay and haven’t burnt the house down, and oh wait! One last thing!” Jennifer Lester rushed around the spotless Lester household kitchen with her usual look of utter constipation on her face. Well, that’s what Phil liked to think of it as. “Burn the house down?” he looked up from his cereal, where he had been spooning up cheerio’s and dropping them with a rather gross sounding plop! back into the sea of milk he had poured all over them earlier. Phil watched his mother flit around the kitchen like a confused wasp, grabbing sticky notes and adding them onto the front of the fridge, along with dad’s Star Wars stickers and a cute Me2U bear Jennifer had gotten her husband four Christmases ago. At sixteen, Phil looked like any other teenager; his hair was an obsidian mop his mother had repeatedly told him to get cut, but he liked it when it hung limply in his eyes. He was a pale boy who seemingly never tanned, always having that same translucent skin. In terms of inheriting any of his parent’s features, all he really had was his father’s abnormally tallness and his mother’s bright blue eyes. “Yes, burn the house down.” His mum was writing yet another emergency contact number on a bright green sticky note and Phil resisted the overwhelming urge to roll his eyes.

Phil Lester was counting down the minutes until his parents went on holiday. The first time since, oh god, ever. His whole life they had babied him and treat him like a child. They loved him, they really did, but he couldn’t be a teenager. The looks his friends gave him at school when his reply to coming to a party or out drinking was always a half-hearted “Uh, I’ll ask my parents”. “You’ll ask your parents?” Cory Summer’s, a kid in his class and kind of a dickhead, had snorted. “Dude, how old are you?!” and Phil had been unable to speak, because Cory was right. He was SIXTEEN years old and his mother still insisted on driving him to and from school.

Yes, Phil was aware that he was targeted as a child, and as he had grown up and started to accidently catch news headlines scrolling across the bottom of the screen, he had come to realize he wasn’t the only one. In fact he was perhaps the only kid who was for some reason, not taken. He vaguely remembered the figure of a man holding him, eyes obstructed by dark sunglasses. And for some reason, whoever had intended to take Phil like the other kids had for some reason spared him. They were still in the headlines sometimes. Scientific experts sitting there with a computerized model of what they thought the missing children would look like now as seventeen year olds. Phil remembered sitting there watching an episode of Crimewatch. They’d been talking about the famous Howell case. Nobody knew the name of the kid, because his parents for some reason refused to release it. So they call the kid by his last name, Howell.

The name Howell joined the likes of Lee, Sugg, Pentland, Liguori and Maxfield, to name a few of the missing kids who had never been found. Their names had haunted the country and the people in it for twelve years. Because there was never any leads. Phil’s parents had tried so damn hard to keep him away from the frightening reality that he could be one of them now, missing and presumed dead. But as he grew up in such a technological world with headlines such as “THE 2003 KIDNAPPINGS: NEW LEADS?” On almost every news channel. But it was after reading up about it on the internet when he was thirteen, seeing the stories told by parents, did he start to remember a shadowy man in his bedroom, a calm and reassuring smile as he found himself frozen in a stranger’s arms.

Sarah Lee, mother of five year old (then) now seventeen year old Caspar Lee: “We were too late. We heard his yells and screams and rushed upstairs. Nothing was out of place but the window, which was still open.”

And once he’d read that, he’d started to understand. His mother and father eventually told him and his mum had told him to keep drinking from the tall glass of milk in front of him. He drank so much he thought milk was going to come spewing out of his nose and ears.

“Phil, you were one of the kids who was supposed to be taken,” his mother had tried to tell him calmly, but she herself was tearful and unable to get full sentences out. His father had leaned forward then. “We’ve chosen, for your benefit, to keep what happened to ourselves. That’s why we moved so suddenly,” Cam Lester had also looked on the verge of tears. “So we could give you a normal life.”

“Normal life” was an understatement however, and after twelve years of therapy sessions and having to decline nights out and friend’s parties, Phil Lester was finally going to have a week to himself. A week where he could be a teenager. What happened when he was a kid still scared him, no terrified him. But they had moved to a quiet village in Manchester, far away from where the kidnappings had taken place. 

“Mum, I’m not going to burn the house down.” Phil bent over his cereal, appetite forgotten after he’d figured making pancakes at 6am the day his parents go on Holiday for a week was a good idea. He was stuffed. He smirked at her when she turned and folded her arms. She leaned against the cabinets in a pretty yellow sundress and sandals, her long, black, curly hair falling to her shoulders. She was definitely stepping out of her comfort zone. Jennifer Lester couldn’t look more uncomfortable without her pressed suit and strict bun. “Mum, you look beautiful,” Phil jumped up to hug his mother and pressed a kiss on top of her head. She hugged him back and held her son tighter than normal. He flinched slightly and laughed nervously. “Mum, you need to chill out.”

She pulled away and smiled softly, brushing Phil’s fringe out of his eyes. “You promise me you’ll call if you spot anything wrong?” Phil’s smile faltered and he folded his arms. “Yep. I’m locking the door, drawing the curtains and hiding under my bed for seven days.” Jen’s eyes darkened and her lips curled into her usual frown. “This isn’t a joke, Phil.” She took a deep breath. “Your father and I have no choice but to take this trip, since it cost nearly six hundred pounds.” His mother grumbled something under her breath, which Phil was sure, was directed at his school. Then out loud; “I really wish Mr. Davidson would reconsider.”

Phil curled his lip. “I’m doing my A Levels, mum,” he can’t help smiling when Jennifer starts to grumble again.

His mother looked like she wanted to argue but was interrupted by a loud horn which shattered their kind of Mother and son bonding session. Phil stepped back and smiled. “Taxi’s here.” He said. And when Jennifer didn’t move, he grabbed her shoulders gently and began to maneuver her out of the kitchen, through the hall, and out the front door. “You’re going on holiday, and for once you’re not going to worry about me,” Phil laughed when his mother let out a snort. “How can I possibly have fun knowing you’re all alone?!” she squeaked.

Phil sighed. “Mum, just enjoy yourself okay?” he pulled her into a hug.

“Phil, you remember what happened when you were a kid, right?” Jennifer whispered desperately in his ears as she hugged her son for the last time. Phil hesitated for a second before nodding, and he hugged his mother tighter. “We’ve moved halfway across the country, mum.” He giggled nervously. “I’ll be okay.” And then he was pulling away and waving half-heartedly as his mother still stood in front of him, her long hair blowing around in the warm summer breeze.

“Jen, come on!” Phil’s father was already in the TAXI and winding the window down. “We’ll call you when we get to the airport!” Cam shouted as Jennifer, after squeezing her son in a hug for hopefully the last time. “Don’t open the door for anyone, do you understand me?” she whispered in his ear, and Phil felt his stomach flip but he nodded, not saying anything.

Then his mother was running across the road and climbing into the TAXI. She gave him one last look before the car drove away, and her expression made his heart sink slightly. She looked so worried and frantic as she lifted her hand and waved desperately at him.

Before he knew it, his parents were gone, only leaving a plume of smoke from the engine as the TAXI took off, speeding down the road. Phil stared back after the car for a few seconds, before turning and walking back inside. With a last wary glance over his shoulder, he shook his head and shut the door behind him.

-

It didn’t take him long to take full advantage of being home alone. Phil might finally be allowed to be a teenager, but not today. His dad has lent him His Netflix account. Probably a bribe to keep him inside, but Chris had told him they had put all the Scream movies on at the weekend. Horror was his all-time favourite genre. Stephen King occupied most of his bookshelf as well as DVD rack.

After he shut the curtains in every single room like his mother had instructed him, as well as locked the back door, all the windows, and then checked and double checked his own window from paranoia, Phil rooted around in the cupboards for crisps and chocolate, then in the fridge for one of his dad’s beer before collapsing onto the couch and with a simple click of the TV remote, he was already scrolling through films of every genre, good or bad. He grabbed a cushion and snuggled into it, letting out a breath of relief before glancing at the closed curtains, shutting out the sun from the late afternoon sky.

Phil was halfway through the second film, quite literally on the edge of his seat, popcorn demolished. His eyes were wide on the screen as yet another clique character met their untimely death. He had laughed through most of the film, loving how satirical it was and wasn’t afraid to take the piss out of itself.

The sudden knock on the door startled him so much; he nearly jumped out of his skin. Phil blinked and froze, finding himself, not in a 90’s slasher with Neve Campbell, but in his living room which when he stared at, seemed more terrifying and less in-touch with reality once he was sure the sun was setting outside, through the slightest gap in the dark blue curtains. His living room seemed the same. Yes, of course it was the same. The fireplace was still there, dotted with ornaments and little wax figures his mum liked to collect. This mental statement seemed to reassure him for some reason.

Phil quickly paused the movie and stayed, comfortable in the sofa crease he had created after being slouched on the sofa for so long, and listened out for the knock again. He had momentarily stopped breathing as he waited in tense silence. Maybe he imagined it?

There it was again – three identical knocks. Before he knew what he was doing, Phil was jumping up, and as much as his common sense was screaming at him to run upstairs and hide under the bed, he made his way across the living room, ducking onto his knees and crawling across the rug towards the window.

Knock, knock, knock. Phil flinched, still on his hands and knees. What time was it? He whipped around to look at the clock mounted on the wall and something hit him then. His dad’s words; “We’ll call you as soon as we’re at the airport!” the clock read twenty five past ten at night. No calls from his parents.

The knocks came again, though this time they were frantic. Phil stood up slowly and, hands shaking, brushed back the curtain to peer outside. From the living room window you could get a clear of Jennifer Lester’s vegetable garden as well as the front door step. Phil made sure he was partly hidden as he tried to figure out the shadow standing on his doorstep. It was a boy. Or a girl? He wasn’t sure. They had their hood up and seemed to be panicking, impatiently bouncing on their heels as they battered on his door once again.

They weren’t going to go away, and that was evident when the boy suddenly let out a desperate cry. “Hello? Is anybody there? Please, you have to help me!”

It was a kid. His age. Harmless. Phil remembered his mother’s words as he made his way over to his front door and after hesitating, he turned the lock. He lay a shaky hand on the metal handle and cleared his throat. It was a kid. It was a teenager like him, and he was probably lost or something. Right? Phil tried to reassure himself as he held the handle, willing himself to push it down. C’mon, he was already this far. His parents were ridiculous. It was twelve years ago and they had moved across the fucking country. With a sigh, he opened the door and hit the porch light. It flickered on and he found himself staring into frightened brown eyes. Phil blinked and was at loss at what to say for a second. Because for just a moment while the blinding light of the porch lamplight bathed the stranger’s face, he swore it looked like the boy with the frightened eyes had a halo.

Phil stared at the boy who stood there in nothing but a simple black t-shirt, jeans and a jacket. Phil looked down and his heart sank a little when he noticed the boy was barefoot.

“Thank god!” the boy’s lips curled into what might have been a smile, but he quickly bit it back. “Look, these guys are after me and I think they want to kill me?!”

“Kill you?” was all Phil could manage. Not even a “Hello there” or a “Why the hell are you standing on my doorstep hammering on my door like the world is ending.” He had a hard time taking the boy seriously.

None of them spoke for a second. Phil only stared at the boy, took in his features and tried to make sense of the strange boy. For one, the boy was about the same height as him, but had tan skin instead of his translucency. Phil blinked at the boy. The boy stared back with blank eyes and seemed to be unable to speak. Phil noticed the boy’s hair was tucked underneath a beanie and from what he could tell it was a chestnut brown, but the thing which sent warning signs screaming in his head, was boy’s bright blue fringe hanging in front of his eyes. “Did you just dye your hair?” was all he could choke out, pointing out the obvious, which was that the boy still had a sopping wet fringe which was dripping bright blue hair dye. When the boy frowned and murmured, “Huh?” before scraping his wet fringe out of his eyes. Phil winced when it left a pretty noticeable blue smudge on the boy’s forehead. “Listen, I know it’s late, but if you could just let me use your phone?”

The boy had a southern accent, and Phil found himself nodding. “Okay. I uh…” he chanced a step out onto the doorstep and looked across the street. Empty. Phil wrapped his arms around himself as the cool summer breeze tickled his bare arms. “There’s...nobody here?” he frowned back at the boy, suspiciously.

The boy sighed. “Look, I just need five minutes? Just let me call my parents?” and Phil was quickly reminded of his own parents not calling. He hesitated, blocking the doorway when the boy tried to barge inside.

“What’s your name?” Phil asked. Well aware of Rule number 3 of the Lester household. If he was ever going to start properly talking to someone, he would politely ask them their name. Phil had never understood why his parents demanded to know everyone’s name in his classes ever since the incident.

The boy scrunched up his nose. “My name?” The boy shrugged. “I’m…” he paused to think about it, and Phil tried to hide a smirk when the boy’s eyes seemed to light up when he noticed the still-sopping strands of hair dangling in front of his eye. “Blue.” The boy smiled and held out his hand for Phil to shake. “I’m Blue.”

Phil knew damn well the boy was lying, but if he was in the boy’s position of being hunted down by god knows who, he’d fake his name too. But despite the boy’s weird behaviour, he really couldn’t stand “Blue” just standing there with not even socks on. “You can use my house-phone.” He said, moving aside so Blue could follow him inside the house. Blue nodded. “Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll just call them to tell them I’m okay.” Blue marvelled at Phil’s house at the teenage boy wandered down the hall, following Phil into the living room where the house phone was mounted on the stand on top of the TV. “Can I get you a drink?” Phil offered, Blue shook his head with a slight smile. “I’m okay thanks. But could I use a bathroom to uh...” he trailed off and gestured madly to the mess of blue and brown that was Blue’s hair underneath the beanie

Phil nodded. “Sure, the bathroom’s upstairs. Just turn left on the landing, and it’s opposite my room.” The boy smiled and nodded before making his way upstairs. “There’s uh- shower gel and stuff in the cabinet!” Phil yelled upstairs, then, curiosity taking over, he shouted, “So, who’s after you? Some dicks from school or something?” He jumped when the boy, or Blue, appeared at the top of the stairs with a towel wrapped around his head. Phil noticed splotches of blue hair dye decorating the towel and tried hard not to grimace.

“What?” Blue wandered downstairs and Phil led him into the lounge, where he sat down. Phil chucked him the house-phone and he caught it, but didn’t do anything with it. He only stared at the phone as if it was some kind of new-found alien species. “Uh, I said who’s after you?” Phil frowned when the boy only looked more confused. So he tried a different approach; “Are you being bullied? Are these guys stalking you or something?”

Blue didn’t answer Phil, instead turning his gaze to the television and staring in bewilderment at the screen where Netflix’s bright red and black logo still lit up the screen. “What’s flixnet?” Blue cocked his head and looked at Phil for some kind of answer. Phil scoffed. “You’re kidding right? But the boy just seemed even more confused. Phil laughed. “Netflix? You’ve never heard of Netflix?”

“Am I supposed to have?” the boy fiddled with the phone in his lap. Phil opened his mouth to laugh, and then insist that the boy must have heard of Netflix. But the look on Blue’s face made him swallow his words.

“So, where do you live?” Phil gestured for him to use the phone, when the boy ignored his question and continued to stare at the phone’s keypad with wide eyes, he grew slightly impatient and the boy’s ignorance. “Sorry, can you try and be as fast as possible?” he asked politely. “It’s just, my parents will be back soon.” He lied.

A wry smile crossed Blue’s lips for a second, but was gone in the blink of an eye. “I’ll be quick, don’t worry.” He smiled up at Phil, and a strand of coloured hair, which was dry now, fell in front of his eyes. Then he started to dial numbers, which to Phil, didn’t sound like an actual telephone number. Blue pressed thirteen digits, which was impossible, because the UK phone number always had eleven digits no matter what.

“Are you sure you know your number?” Phil raised his eyebrows when Blue lifted the handset upside down and murmured into the speaker of the phone. “Hi mum,” he said quietly, then after quick glance at Phil, he nodded and smiled, as if he was actually talking to someone. “Yeah, I’m okay. I’m just at this guy’s house.”

Phil stared, completely baffled. He didn’t know whether to laugh or yell at the boy. This was all clearly a joke. He thought about marching over and snatching the phone off of the boy, but decided on leaving Blue for a second to talk to his imaginary parents. He figured if he rang the police from the kitchen, and then stalled the obvious psycho for a few minutes until the police arrived, he wouldn’t have to call his parents. He could totally handle this. Phil wandered into the dining area, and despite feeling pretty confident about getting rid of Blue, his hands were still shaking.

“Oh, hey Phil!” a familiar voice startled him, and for a second he forgot about the possibly homeless intruder with the dyed blue fringe in his house, and started forwards. Chris Kendall, his childhood friend since he had moved to this sleepy village when he was younger, was knelt in front of his open fridge, and was currently helping himself to an apple. “Chris?” he almost yelled it, but remembering Blue in the lounge, settled on hissing. “What are you doing here?”

Chris Kendall was perhaps his only friend at school, and that was it. His parents forbid Chris from ever coming over, since the boy was apparently a “bad influence”. Chris wasn’t bad. He might look it through Jennifer Lester’s eyes, but really, if you looked past the explicit tattoo’s decorating his arms and slightly crude and offensive sense of humour, he really was a big softie. Chris wore jeans and a t-shirt and had a backpack slung over his shoulders. Phil raised his eyebrows at it. It was most likely full of alcohol and maybe a bag of weed tucked in there somewhere.

Chris grinned, showing a mouthful of mushed up apple. “The back door was open! I came over to see if you wanted to play video games, since your parents are gone all week.” The boy stood up and chucked the half eaten apple in the bin and then pulled Phil into a hug. “Nice to see you, man!”

Phil was frozen against his friend’s chest. Chris’s words were trying to register in his mind, but he was finding it hard to believe them. “The back door was open?” he frowned at Chris, pulling away. Chris nodded. “Yeah! Which I thought was a bit weird?” the boy fiddled with the unruly, brown mop which was his hair and then clapped Phil on the shoulders. “So, what are you up to? I texted you like ten times, but you didn’t reply?”

Phil swallowed, playing the memory of himself locking the back door earlier on in the day and then double checking it was locked. He could only stare at Chris, and from his expression, Chris’s eyes widened. “Are you, hey are you okay? Dude, you’ve gone white as a sheep.”

“The door,” Phil blindly wandered over to the back door and yanked on the handle. When it opened with ease, his heart jumped into his throat. “Shit, I know I locked it!” Chris stared at him, a frown starting to form on his lips once the boy realized something was wrong. “Wait, so you locked the door earlier?” Chris asked, joining Phil’s side. “Dude, I swear to god, the door was wide open when I came about ten minutes ago.”

“Blue?!” Phil could only yell then, his tone choked. Ignoring Chris’s exasperated, “Wait, who’s that?” he rushed into the lounge, his friend stumbling after him. “Phil? Hey, what’s all this about? Who’s Blue?”

The strange boy, Blue, looked up, startled when he appeared with Chris in the doorway. He must have looked terrified, because Blue frowned at him. The boy was still holding the house phone upside down. “What’s wrong?” Blue frowned at him, brown eyes wide in confusion. Then when the boy caught sight of Chris, he seemed to lower his head slightly, pulling the beanie further over his face. Chris let out a laugh and hit Phil playfully. “Phil, you scared the fucking life out of me!” then he was smirking at Blue, who was, for some reason trying to avoid Chris’s eyes. “Who’s this then?” Chris waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Blue frowned at Chris, as if Phil’s friend had sprouted three head, and Phil, trying to ignore the bad feeling brewing in his stomach, quickly replied. “He’s no one,” he said quickly. “I’m just doing him a favour.”

Chris nodded, but was still smirking. “Riiight,” he said, dragging out the word, then folding his arms across his chest, addressed Blue. “So, Mr. Bad Dye Job. Do you have a name?”

Blue seemed perplexed by Chris’s words, and Phil sighed. “It’s Blue.”

Chris looked like he wanted to say something, which would likely be offensive, so he jumped in quickly. “Have you rung your parents?” he asked the boy, knowing damn well he hadn’t. Blue nodded, and Phil felt relief flood into his veins. “Great! So are they going to pick you up?” Blue smiled at that dimples appearing in both cheeks. Phil couldn’t put a finger on it, but something was almost…familiar? about that smile. He’d seen it somewhere.

“Actually, my brother and sister are.” Blue smiled at him. Then; “Uh- could I have a glass of water or something? I’m feeling a little dizzy.” Phil nodded enthusiastically, relieved to be getting rid of the strange boy.

“Yeah okay,” he smiled politely, then grabbed Chris and pulled him close. “Keep an eye on him.”

Chris let out a snort and rolled his eyes, sending him a two fingered salute before walking over and collapsing on the couch beside Blue, who automatically shuffled away. “I’ll have a beer?” Chris smiled expectedly at Phil, and Phil rolled his eyes, starting to calm down slightly. “Fuck off.”

Phil wandered back into the kitchen and filled a glass of water for Blue, before deciding to make himself a cup of tea, since he was feeling pretty thirsty. He grabbed a cup out of the cupboard, filled the kettle and flicked it on, and then leaned against the cabinet, folding his arms. Automatically, his thoughts started to wander, as well as his gaze. He found himself staring at the back door, which was shut and locked again, but he swore he locked it earlier. Phil knew he’d never forget. His mother had reminded him repeatedly this morning.

And then before he really knew it, he was thinking about Blue’s smile Or just the boy in general. Phil thought about the almost permanent look of complexity on the boy’s face, as if he was constantly confused by everything. And then Phil was thinking about Blue’s dark brown hair and dyed blue fringe which hung in his eyes, and maybe if the boy smiled once in a while, he might actually be pretty attractive.

But Blue did smile. Once. And Phil had been so taken aback that the boy’s mouth muscles could go that far; he failed to see what had been staring him right in the face for twelve whole years; On the TV, on the front of the newspaper, on specially televised appeals held by grieving parents.

Phil remembered being eight, watching the TV while his parents unloaded shopping out of the car. There were two people- the parents of a missing kid. The woman was tall and pretty with long tangled brown hair and tan skin. She had no makeup, or she had cried it all off. She was standing with an equally tall man who had the same tan skin, same wide frightened eyes. “Please, if anybody’s got ANY information on our son’s whereabouts, please, oh god, please come forward.” The woman, who was Lila Howell according to the subtitles, held up a picture of her son in front of the camera.

Eight year old Phil stared at the picture of the smiling boy as he sat cross legged on the carpet of the sitting room. The boy in the picture was grinning excitedly as he tucked into an ice-cream; dimples standing out as the little boy seemed to be laughing. Phil had shuffled forwards on little hands and feet and without thinking, pressed a tiny hand against the glass of the TV and against the little boy’s smiling face. Eight year old Phil had no reason for continuously staring at the image of the boy until his eyes hurt. But he felt connected to the boy for some reason. As if they had both shared something but wasn’t quite sure why the boy made his eyes start to sting and tears slide down his cheeks. The sudden emotion made him even more upset.

And then he’d started screaming. So loud that Jennifer and Cam had ran in, and upon seeing what he was watching, grabbed the remote and switched it over to an episode of SpongeBob Squarepants.

Phil blinked then, back in the present. Back in his kitchen, back where his kettle was whistling as it boiled water for his tea. His stomach was dancing and his throat was dry. He thought of the little boy- the missing Howell boy he had seen on the TV, and then he thought of Blue; the boy’s brown eyes and those dimples when he smiled. No, it couldn’t be. He told himself with a forced laugh. It couldn’t be him. Blue wasn’t the Howell boy. He couldn’t be! Blue had a family; a brother and sister who were coming to get him.

And then Phil remembered Blue hadn’t actually called anyone.

“Phil!” a sudden cry yanked him out of his thoughts, and before he consciously knew what he was doing, he was grabbing a knife out of the kitchen draw and stumbling out of the kitchen, and into the living room. He was about to ask what was wrong, or maybe ask for Blue to tell him his real name. But the words stuck in his throat, when he saw Blue, standing, the look of confusion and complexity completely wiped off his face. He’d taken his beanie off too, revealing a full head of chestnut brown hair, minus the blue fringe which still hung in front of his eyes. Phil swallowed and took a few steps backwards, because, fuck, Blue was smiling. Wide and manic. And he was pointing a gun directly at Chris.

“Phil?” Chris hissed. “Did you forget to mention that your new fucking friend is a psychopath?!” Phil’s friend held his hands up in surrender, and looked more scared than Phil had ever seen him.

Phil tried to stay calm, his chest ached as the realization hit him. The boy standing in front of him, Blue, or “Blue” was the missing Howell kid. He seemed incapable of speech, before whispering, “You’re the- you’re the boy-“he didn’t have to spit out the words “missing boy” because Blue’s grin only widened, and rolled his eyes at that. Phil caught a gleam in the boy’s eyes. This boy was, apart from being an Oscar winning actor which his whole “I don’t know anything” masquerade, he also looked, just by looking into his eyes, like he was highly fucking intelligent.

“Phil Lester.” Blue smirked when he flinched. “I didn’t tell you my name!” and Phil’s mind was on overdrive as Blue seemed to sense his discomfort and fear. “Nice to meet you! I’m Dan Howell.” He said cheerily, and when Chris tried to make for a run for it, the boy stuck the barrel of his gun into Chris’s neck and smiled sweetly. “Move an inch, tattoo boy, and I’ll blow your fucking brains out.”

Chris could only nod, and sit back down. Phil might have cried out as his friend was threatened, but instead all he could think about the name Dan Howell. After twelve years of speculation of what the Howell kid’s name was, he finally knew. He stuck the kitchen knife he held discreetly into his back pocket and held up his own arms in reluctant surrender.

Phil knew why Blue or “Dan” was here. It was obvious. But he still found himself asking. “What do you want?” unable to stop himself from trembling. Dan shrugged at that. “What do I want?” he twirled the gun around with a dramatic sigh. “Well firstly, I’d like it if you put down the fucking knife you’re holding behind your back.” Phil felt all hope of escaping this disappear when he yanked the knife out of his back pocket, glaring at Dan, and let it drop on the wooden floorboards.

“Thank you,” Dan smiled at him. A full toothy grin, complete with dimples, and Phil wanted to strangle the kid. Chris was still sitting, and when he moved slightly, Dan, quick as a flash, whipped around and pointed the gun directly at his friend’s forehead. Chris let out a yell and Phil curled. “No, don’t hurt him! Just let him go!”

Dan cocked his head and smirked. “And let him run off and tell the police?” he let out a laugh then, and Phil thought about the kid he’d seen in the photograph, and then looking at Dan, he shivered. All the innocence he had ever had, had been wiped off his face. Dan’s eyes were cold and icy. His smile was wide and sadistic.

Phil lost it then. The fear which gripped his gut finally causes him to snap. “What the hell do you want?” he managed to yell without his voice breaking. “Why are you here?!” and then Dan raised his eyebrows, and Phil knew Dan knew damn well why he was here. Dan was here for him. To finish what the organisation who took Dan and turned him into a psychopath started twelve years ago.

Chris stayed silent and Dan just smiled. “Did you really think they would just forget about you?!” he laughed scornfully and Phil clenched his fists. Then Dan walked over slowly and purposely, until the two boys were nearly touching noses. Phil glared into Dan’s manic eyes and tried to ignore the boy’s sadistic grin. “Let me tell you something,” Dan leaned forward and whispered in his ear, and Phil tried not to pull away and flinch since when he even moved an inch, Dan’s gun was automatically protruding harshly into his stomach.

Dan’s breath was icy. “Did you really think we’d just let you live your perfect little life while we spent twelve years being fucking tortured?” the boy spat, and Phil couldn’t help it. He pulled away and stared at the boy standing in front of him. He was kidnapped Dan Howell who had been turned into some kind of merciless psychopath. “Tortured?” he hissed. “They- they tortured you?!”

Dan took a step back and shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, I screamed though every operation, every check-up and every brain scan,” the boy shrugged. “But for what I have now?” Dan grinned. “It was all fucking worth it.”

Phil stared, trying to take in the boy’s words. Suddenly the gun in the boy’s hands didn’t seem to the thing which was causing his insides to twist and the overwhelming urge to vomit spike in his gut. “They experimented on you?” he could all but whimper.

Dan stared at him, a smirk playing on his lips. “You don’t know who they are.” He giggled when Phil only frowned back, confused and Chris let out an angry yell; “What’s he talking about, Phil?!”

Dan turned to Chris for the first time since the ordeal began, and smiled at Phil’s terrified friend. “Hasn’t Phil told you what he’s supposed to be part of?!” he laughed then, faking annoyance. “Phil Lester, I’ve read your file.” Dan smirked at Phil, and Phil tried to look for an escape route.

And then Dan was so close to him again, so damn close he could feel the boy’s excited breaths. “Phil Lester, Serial Number 1345673,” Dan recalled from memory, and then then grinned. “Not yet converted.”

Phil could only stare at the crazy boy. So many questions were on his tongue; who the organisation were, why he was a part of it, and how messed up Dan was. But the only thing which managed to come out was:

“What did they do to you?”

Dan grinned at that and pulled something out of his pocket. Phil started to stumble backwards when he figured out what Dan was holding. It was a syringe. “What did they do to me?” Dan didn’t attack Phil with the syringe, he only waved it. Grey liquid sloshed around at the bottom and Phil flinched. “This is titanium,” Dan explained in a cheery voice, and before Phil’s eyes suddenly, the boy’s eyes were glowing an impossible purple, and then Dan blinked and his eyes went back to normal. “I’m currently full of the stuff.”

He was imagining it. Phil tried to tell himself. But no. When he blinked, Dan was still smiling at him, and yes, his eyes were still glowing an impossible shade of purple.

“Titanium?” Phil found himself choking out the only word he could think of, backing away slowly, and Dan, seemingly enjoying his fear, only stepped closer. “Phil, believe me when I say, you’ll thank me for this,” and then the boy was lunging forward with the needle, aimed for the flesh of his neck. He quickly dodged the hit surprisingly, and staggering backwards, managed to swing his fist into the back of Dan’s head. He expected Dan to collapse then, from the force of the hit, but instead he kind of….Stopped. Phil stared, bewildered, as Dan seemed to freeze in mid-fall. Everything seemed to stop, as if someone had pulled the plug on the boy and the syringe full of, what was it., Titanium? Fell onto the floor, smashing into pieces, and its grey liquid spreading across the floorboards. Chris let out a cry. “Fuck!”

And as quickly as he had suddenly froze, Dan was falling to his knees with a yell, seeming to come back to life. For a second he looked confused, before his eyes widened with fear, and Phil found himself turning to look at the boy. “Get it out!” Dan yelled. “Please! You have to get it out while it’s shorted!” Dan started to convulse then, his mouth opening and shutting as if someone else was controlling it.

“Wait,” Phil froze in running, and ran back to Dan, who seemed to be having some kind of fit on the floor. His body was trembling, eyes flickering, changing every few seconds: Brown, purple, brown, purple.

“Listen to me,” Dan said through gritted teeth, his eyes flashed purple once again and Phil flinched. “You need to cut it out, do you understand me?” his voice broke then, and he let out an angry scream. “Leave me alone! Get..get out of my head!”

“Cut what out?!” Phil was breathless, finding it hard to speak. Chris fell to his knees beside the boy who was crying and yelling between agonised pleadings. “The chip in my neck!” the boy cried. “Get it out!”

Phil remembered the knife in his pocket and pulled it out, staring at it. Chris’s eyes nearly popped out. “Wait, are you serious?” he spoke calmly to Dan then: “Is there- is there something controlling you?!

“Cas!” was all Dan could hiss through clenched teeth. “Get….get out of my head!”

Chris and Phil exchanged glances. It was pretty clear that as much as Phil didn’t want to believe it, there was something inside Dan’s head, controlling his actions. Did that mean the last twenty minutes was nothing but a kidnapped kid, now a brainwashed teenager, all put a puppet on strings?

“Back of my...neck!” Dan cried. “It’s in the back of my neck, please- please get it out!” he was suddenly shaking uncontrollably and sitting up, eyes flickering once again. He reached for his fallen gun, but let out a yell and yanked his arm back. “No, no don’t make me do it, I don’t- I don’t want to hurt anyone!”

“Phil hurry!” Chris held down a hysterical Dan, who kept trying to grab his gun, his expression faltering and changing from terrified and frantic, to emotionless and stoic. Phil, panicking, felt for a lump around the back of the boy’s neck, and tried not to think about what he was about to do. “I- I think I’ve got it,” he said shakily, running a thumb over a pretty big bump under the surface of the skin. Phil held the knife uncertainly and felt his stomach flip. “Wait, isn’t this going to hurt?!” he sent a panicked look at Chris who was having trouble pinning down Dan’s arms. “Just DO IT!” Dan screamed. “They’re regaining control, get it out…NOW!” he roared. Both Phil and Chris jumped, startled as the force of his scream. Phil took a deep breath and positioned the knife, before slowly cutting into the base of Dan’s neck. Blood started to leak from the tiny incision he had made and it pooled around the wound, making Phil’s stomach jump. He leaned forward and tried to seek out the chip, but Dan was jolting now, Chris having to throw himself over the younger boy to stop him jumping up.

“Wait, I see it!” Phil caught a glimpse of something silver and shimmering as he peered at the open incision. He needed something to blot away the blood. I’ve got it!” trying hard to keep his stomach down, he poked two fingers into the wide gap, and felt a metal square no bigger than his little finger. Without thinking, he pressed it between his fingers and snapped it in two. Dan stopped then. He stopped screaming and crying, stopped trying to grab his gun. He just stopped, and when Phil looked over to where Chris was still uncertainly holding the kid down, he found himself staring down into half-open lazy brown eyes. For the first time since meeting Blue, or Dan, the boy couldn’t have looked any more real.

But there was no time to ask Dan what the fuck had just happened, the boy was already jumping up, and grabbing Phil’s hand, yanking him to his feet too. “We’ve got about five minutes,” Dan said, then yelped when Chris came back with a towel and pressed It over the fresh wound. Phil stared at the boy. “Five minutes? Until what?” Dan shook his head, brushing his blue fringe out of his eyes. “Until they track down the chip’s last known location and come and get me.” Dan hesitated. “I mean us. They’re after you too.”

“What?!” Phil tried insanely hard not to lose it. Dan only nodded. “PJ and Louise are outside waiting for the signal,” he sighed and wandered over to the curtain, peeking out before letting out a frustrated hiss and sweeping the curtain back into place. “Yeah, they’re still there.” Then Dan was pacing. “Control will be notifying them of my chip shortening any minute now, we’re fucking screwed.”

“Wait, PJ?” Chris frowned. He’s taken it upon himself to clean up the mess of titanium, or whatever it was which had leaked all over the floorboards. The boy snapped his head up. “Has he got curly hair? And like a green streak in his hair?” Phil felt a shiver climb its way up his spine. PJ. Another of the missing kids.

Dan nodded. “We’re accounted for by our colours,” he explained. “Used to be our serial numbers. But last year we managed to escape. Coloured our hair to try and hide our identities but they used it against us.”

Phil opened his mouth to speak, but Dan already knew his question. “When they had control of my mind, they coloured my hair and left it wet so you’d pity me.” He muttered. Then he sighed. “How the fuck are we going to get out of this?!” 

Phil was exasperated. “Why though? Why me? Why you? What the hell is so damn special about me?!” he let out a laugh, gesturing to himself. Dan rolled his eyes. “Why do they want you?” he let out a laugh then, but it was more human and real, than his earlier laughs, which had been manufactured by god knows who.

Dan sighed. “Don’t freak out okay?” his lips curled into a slight smile then. “Who am I kidding? I’m Mr. Fucking Radioactive. Of course you’re going to freak out.”

Then Dan was looking directly at Phil, and his eyes were so gentle that Phil had trouble believing the same boy had attacked him earlier. “Look at me, okay? Don’t take your eyes away from me. Got it?”

Phil could only nod. Chris stood at the window. “Uh- so you know the guy I was talking about, PJ? Yeah, he’s um…he’s standing on the doorstep.”

But Dan wasn’t listening, and Phil was too busy staring into the blue haired boy’s brown eyes. Dan took a deep breath. “They want to do this to you.” he said simply, and as calmly as he had said those words, he burst into flames.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave kudos if you liked it and would like more! :3


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